Forum

We would like to thank the Sunnyside Police Department and
the Sunnyside Fire Department. Thank you for coming to the school to talk with
the children about bike safety and fire safety. It was great!

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help. We
appreciate all that you do for our school.

/s/ Calvary Lutheran School staff, Sunnyside

Kids desperately need our help

Hundreds of thousands of children in this country
desperately need our help. They dream of someday belonging to a permanent
family who will love them forever.

They are America's waiting children. They are waiting to be
adopted.

In the United States today, more than half a million
children are living in foster care, often moving once, twice, even three times
in one year from temporary home to temporary home. 126,000 of these children
are available for adoption. They are ready and waiting for a family to call
their own.

In our state, there are on average between 1,800 and 2,000
children in foster care awaiting adoption. Many older children wait for their
entire childhood. Children wait while systems, often over-burdened and
under-funded, slowly move to find solutions to family problems.

The Children's Action Network is a partner with the Dave
Thomas Foundation for Adoption on the annual CBS television special, "A
Home for the Holidays." This one-hour broadcast focuses on adoption and
tells the stories of children and the remarkable people who adopt them. It also
introduces us to the children who continue to wait.

America's waiting children come in all shapes and sizes,
ages and races. Some are medically fragile children or children who want to be
adopted with a brother or sister. They all have potential. They all want and
deserve what millions of other children have—love, protection, support and a
place to belong.

These terrific children need our help. To learn about
waiting children in our area and about the adoption process, calls FAMILIES FOR
KIDS, Washington state's foster and adoptive home recruitment agency at
1-888-794-1794 and tune in to CBS on Wednesday, Dec. 22, at 8 p.m.

/s/ Daryl Daugs, director, Families for Kids, Everett

‘Little council’

In response to the "Little" Council of Sunnyside
letter to the editor on Oct. 27, obviously Mr. Ricks and "the little
council" have their own "little agenda" for the City of
Sunnyside. At $2.5 million to simply start the huge clean-up of the Monson
feedlot property, our city coffers are getting "littler" every day!

Surely such organizations and individuals Mr. Ricks
named—Yakima County, Yakima Clean Air Authority, Washington Dept. of Ecology,
Washington Dept. of Agriculture, Washington Dairy Federation, Sunnyside Port
District, Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Dan Newhouse, Mr. Bruce Chandler
and Mr. Jesse Palacios—had put much thought into the decision not to be part of
this "little" endeavor that will most likely cost taxpayers millions
more.

We encourage the citizens of Sunnyside to stand up to the
"little council" and not sit back and wait for the next
"little" move to be made. The next thing on the "little"
council's "little agenda" is privatization of the public works sewer
and water departments. The privatization of these departments, we believe, will
cause more than a "little" expense to the citizens of our community.

Please join us as we work to get past the "small
minded" thinking of the council.

I have been reading a couple articles in the Daily Sun News.
I have come across a couple comments by Councilman Jim Restucci that I want to comment
on.

Mr. Restucci stated that he feels more of the private sector
should get involved in and donate to the Sunnyside Economic Development
Association. In the past I felt anyone but private industry was foolish to give
a dime to Sunnyside, Inc., considering the Port of Sunnyside controlled
economic development and pushed all their land first. The Port's management
felt the heck with private enterprise. And I still feel the Sunnyside Economic
Development Association needs to get their office out of the Port's to show
they are not a binding force of the Port. I am more apt to donate to the
Sunnyside Economic Development Association today than before.

Mr. Restucci states in another article that the city council
should help Sunshine Days. Well, is the Sunshine Days festivities that
important to the community? Evidently not, being it is so lightly attended.

I agree that Sunnyside needs things to bring people into our
community. But with Sunshine Days being the time of year it is, it creates a
problem for attendance. This valley is in grape, apple, hop, hay and corn
harvest at the time. It is hard to stop harvest just to attend Sunshine Days.
And it takes thousands of workers to succeed in the time of harvest. Either
Sunshine Days needs moved to another date, or they need to quit it and start
something else.